The Jacobite Relics of Scotland

Volume 2

James Hogg's Jacobite Relics - originally commissioned by the Highland Society of London in 1817 - is an important addition to The Collected Works of James Hogg. It created a canon for the Jacobite song which had an enormous influence on subsequent collections, and was of great importance in defining the relationship between the Scottish song tradition and its Romantic editors and collectors.

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From the first publication of the Relics in 1819, there has been speculation about how many of them were authored or at least substantially altered by Hogg. Professor Murray Pittock has conducted extensive research in this area since 1987, and has identified several previously unknown sources from which Hogg would have worked as he developed his collection.

The introduction to volume two deals with the genesis of the text and Hogg's relationship with the Highland Society and there is also considerable annotation to accurately communicate the context of the songs and Hogg's relationship to the textuality of Jacobite culture.

About the Author

James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. He is best known for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

Murray Pittock is Bradley Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow, Head of the College of Arts and Vice-Principal. He has formerly held chairs and other senior appointments at Strathclyde, Edinburgh and Manchester universities. His recent work includes Scottish and Irish Romanticism (2008), The Reception of Sir Walter Scott in Europe (2007) and James Boswell (2007). Forthcoming work includes collections on Robert Burns in Global Culture, the Reception of Robert Burns in Europe and the textual edition of the Scottish Musical Museum for the Oxford Burns. He is currently PI of the AHRC Beyond Text project, ‘Robert Burns, 1796-1909: Inventing Tradition and Securing Memory’.

Reviews

A thorough genealogist of Hogg's airs and texts, and a skilful unraveller of their secrets, Pittock has contributed substantially to our understanding of how the nineteenth century constructed its eighteenth-century past, and mediated its folk-cultural present.

Professor Pittock's edition of Hogg's Jacobite Relics promises to be an important volume - not only in terms of the larger Stirling/ South Carolina Edition of the Works of James Hogg, but also in the field of Scottish song. His careful annotation, which draws on many years of research into the traditions of Jacobite song, will make this the authoritative edition of a hitherto neglected, but extremely significant collection by a major Scottish writer.- Fiona Stafford, Somerville College, Oxford

This is a major contribution to Hogg studies, but it is even more important than that. The Relics - which Murray Pittock stamps with unquestioned editorial quality - and the Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition's commitment to presenting new scholarly editions of all Hogg's song collections, with the literary and musical components, is certainly to be celebrated. Hogg can then stand alongside Burns and Scott.

This strikes me as an exemplary edition in the sense that it amply fulfills the need for a text in an area where textual exploration/ discovery is/ has moved rapidly of late. Pittock is the expert in the field… I recommend it without hesitation.- Professor Jeremy Black, University of Exeter